elane liked *******
and quite possibly ******
and what ever they called ****
in the late 70's/early 80's

she had a daughter named franny
who i played with
and a husband named glen
who she cheated on when he was out
milking the cows

all the milkers smoked cigarettes
and lived in mobile homes down the hill
from us

except for max who went to church with us
my dad offered him a job while he was in jail
i think he turned himself in for some crime
when he got saved

my dad always liked to hire ex-convicts
because he was a firm believer in grace and mercy
and second chances

anyways, once franny and i got into a fight
about our dads
she said her dad was the boss,
which was confusing to me because
i thought my dad was the boss
we both got mad and cried

i used to pick up the cigarette butts
that the milkers had left in some dried out mud puddle
(i was five or younger so give me a break)
and pretend i was smoking

since my parents were united pentacostal
i was taught all about the glorious
tribulations and persecutions that i would have to live
through before jesus raptured us all to heaven

before i was old enough to be terrified
i pictured myself as being left behind
smoking cigarettes, hiding out in trees
kind of looking forward to it

whenever i would go over to franny's place
we would watch cartoons. ****** doo was my favorite
my parents didn't have a tv, so franny's was where it was
at for me.

elane would come out of her bedroom and yell at
franny to turn the tv down because she was trying to sleep

franny was always telling me how her mommy
had an owie in her nose

later on, glen quit
and moved away with franny and elane

and the mobile home they had lived in
burnt down

i used to post poetry and short stories
and long, meandering journals
written while ******
on another website,

but quit because membership has gone down
from several thousand to four members over the years.

the same few people log in every day,
they are all retired, so they have a lot of spare time.

the kids aren't coming back, and everyone just keeps on getting
older and older.

one of these four people has been a member there since 1999,
so almost a generation.

he has 3,852 works on file.
basically, he is the only person
still posting on that website.

many of these were written in the 70's, 80's, 90's,
but are posted daily in comic sans font, along with a comment
and the date the poem was originally written. he keeps archives.

i hope he doesn't read the poetry here because i don't want to hurt his feelings.
he has the same birthday as my dad,
so i sort of felt sorry for him when his girlfriend who listed her occupation as "professional clown, potter, and jazz flutist" started ignoring him and left him and the website that he has loved for 18 years.

she has 999 works on file
and all of them are really long and typed in all capital letters. most of them have no paragraph breaks.

a few months ago i checked the balances
in my various checking and saving accounts
and noticed i had too much cash

since i'm not going to buy overvalued real-estate
in a sellers market
or grossly overvalued stocks in the tech sector
before that bubble pops (i have nothing but deep intense hatred for silicon valley, jeff bezos, and mark zuckerberg)
i decided to spend the surplus on myself

and quit my job

after another unproductive day at work being yelled at by a fat, angry, white, single woman who knew everything.

she appreciated her bluntess.

i didn't bother to give any notice other than an email saying: "i'm resigning effective right now,  thanks for the opportunity, my employee badge is under my keyboard! kthnxbi!"

i wonder if she yelled when she read the email
and if  i should change the title of this poem to
"it's ok you can bring a salad for lunch everyday like i do"
or
"i've been reading "The Art of War" lately and even though it's the comic book version, i'm still going to win this cat fight *****".

he was forty but lied about his age,
told everyone he looked young for his age,
and still shopped at hot topic

he is in late forties now, still thinks he looks young,
and still shops at hot topic

he buys the same stuff that people were buying
in the 80's before hot topic existed

he describes himself as having such a brilliant mind that he is easily bored with people. he is an intj, so this means that he knows everything. he is very intelligent according to the re-occuring craigslist misc. romance ads he has been posting for the last decade.

when he gets inspired, he updates his fetlife profile
(or his ok cupid profile)

i met him when i was too alone, but not numb enough yet
he kept on telling me that depressed people were really just narcissists who couldn't stop thinking about themselves

i couldn't tolerate him, but had nothing else to do, so i had to be drunk and ****** at all times in his presence and i don't drink very often
prior to that i was only a weekend stoner,
but that changed real quick

he made himself too comfortable
and bought me a bob dobbs book for my birthday
because he thought and still thinks bob dobbs is hilarious

he kept on using my bathroom for long periods of time
and bringing the bob dobbs book in with him every time

i told him he could keep the bob dobbs book
but he said, "no, it's more the kind of book that i want to read when i come over and use your bathroom"
so i swallowed the throw up in my mouth, asked him to leave, threw the book away, and never had anything to do with him after that.

shortly thereafter, he started diagnosing me and every other woman who is not attracted to him as having borderline personality disorder via craigslist missed connections and/or his fetlife profile (which i still read for laughs).

then he broke into my apartment through the back door the night before he got married to a woman who needed a green card. i'm not sure why he did that, i'll never know. he broke the door, so it wouldn't shut properly anymore and i smashed my fingers in it once while trying to shut it. my fingernails fell off.

and this is why i have been celibate for the last 7 and half years.

You sighed so much
your lungs almost collapsed.

Is existing the same
as living?

You tell yourself
that "today is the day"
day after day
after day
after day

But depression drags you
back to your bed.
It tells you
"there's another day"